Dante's Poem

Orange and white spirit cat
you appear as a ghost might,
spread out on the floor
sunbathing in a spot of sun.
golden coat with soft white patterns that
criss cross your face and the rest of you
shimmers in the warm light

Sometimes at night
I watched you silently hide
behind moonlit blades of grass
crouched low, head tilted upwards
watching stars, perhaps,
waiting to catch one...

You didn’t wiggle a whisker
for a long while
and I wondered if you were dreaming.
You must have had
wild cat lions and tigers on your mind
compelling you now to
chase ankles or slippers or
hide behind doors or suddenly pounce
or run wild up and down stairs

or trees
for that matter…
you dashed after squirrels,
each time
the noisy acrobat swung away,
you hung on to the end of the branch
watched it go, shaking your head.

I still look for you
in that field across the street
and I glance upward uneasily
to the top branches
of the cottonwood
where the limbs wrap
around an untidy nest.

It is abandoned;
the hawk family
that buzzed us all summer,
that first year,
is gone too.